Jeffrey Pyne is on trial in Oakland County Circuit Court in Pontiac for the death of his mother, Ruth Pyne. / Andre J. Jackson/Detroit Free Press

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Detroit Free Press staff writer

When police interviewed Jeffrey Pyne in the hours after his mother’s murder, he told them he had been planting lilac bushes at the home of a former teacher at the time his mother was killed. But the teacher, Diane Needham, testified today that the bushes had been planted four days earlier.

Needham’s testimony came in the eighth day of Pyne’s first degree murder trial. Pyne is accused of killing Ruth Pyne, 51, May 27, 2011. Needham said she was visiting a nearby daughter when she got a voice mail around 2:30 p.m. from Pyne that day that he had been to her home in Highland Township that afternoon and planted the lilac bushes.

In truth, Needham said, they were planted on May 23, she said. “When I drove into the yard I knew that Jeffrey had been there,” Needham told jurors.

Prosecutors contend Pyne lied about his alibi because he killed his mother sometime mid-day, then disposed of bloody clothes and the murder weapon before showing up for work at Spicer’s Orchard in Fenton at 3 p.m.

Needham’s neighbor, Donald MacKinnon, who lives next door, also testified that he was outside most of the day on the day of the murder, helping another neighbor put together an above ground pool. He told jurors that he never saw Pyne, 22, at the Needham home, nor did he see Pyne’s car. And like Needham, he said he noticed the newly planted lilacs early in the week, not Friday.

Defense attorney James Champion, under cross exam, said, “You’re not saying he wasn’t there, you’re just saying you didn’t see him.”

MacKinnon said, “No, I’m saying he wasn’t there.”

In testimony earlier in the day, Erica Anderson, a forensic laboratory specialist with the Michigan State Police testified that blood found on the faucet handle of a laundry room tub matched Ruth Pyne’s DNA. Prosecutors contend Pyne, after bludgeoning his mother in the garage, cleaned up in the house.

Prosecutors have argued to the jurors that Pyne, angry that his mother, who suffered serious mental illness, was refusing to take her medication, flew into a rage and killed her. Champion has argued that Ruth Pyne was likely killed by a stranger, or strangers.